It’s No 1939

I’d meant to post about this earlier but better late than never, eh? Hollywood is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The North American box office hit a slump at the weekend, with top earner “The Possession” taking in less than $10 million and what could be the gloomiest overall haul since the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

With only a couple of new releases to tempt movie fans, horror movie “The Possession” pulled in an estimated $9.5 million in the United States and Canada.

That’s the first time since 2008 that no film took $10 million or more at the domestic box office.

Early September is historically sluggish. After blockbuster releases over the summer, Hollywood studios reserve their big films for the November and December holidays.

But revenues for the three-day movie-going weekend were particularly low, with the total gross for all films expected to be $65-$68 million.

If the numbers hold when final figures come in on Monday, it could make the weekend the worst since September 21-23 2001 – two weekends after 9/11 – when revenue topped out at $59.7 million.

“It is pretty scary when the top movie comes in at only $9.5 million,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst at Hollywood.com.

“This is one of the worst-grossing weekends of the last 10 years. In the summer, single movies had opening weekends bigger than this entire weekend gross,” he added.

However, Dergarabedian said hope was on the way next week with the next installment of the “Resident Evil” horror franchise and the re-release of Disney/Pixar’s 2003 family film “Finding Nemo,” this time in 3D.

This weekend’s lows follow a mixed summer that saw blockbusters like “The Dark Knight Rises” and “The Avengers” but a number of flops that led to a 5 percent drop in summer ticket sales in North America compared to summer 2011.

But in the year to date, the domestic box office is up more than three percent in revenue compared to the same point in 2011 and currently stands at $7.7 billion, with a 2 percent increase in attendance.

Up 3% is “no growth”. The big blockbusters that have provided that much revenue are getting more expensive every year. Last year’s champ, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 cost an estimated $125 million to make. This year’s box office king, Marvel’s The Avengers came in at nearly twice that at $220 million. The studio will make pots of money on it since the gross receipts are an astonishing $1.5 billion but the ROI isn’t as good and without The Avengers things would look even worse for already than they already do.

According to Box Office Mojo the top 10 grossing films of 2012 so are are:

1. Marvel’s The Avengers
2. The Dark Knight Rises
3. The Hunger Games
4. The Amazing Spider-Man
5. Brave
6. Ted
7. Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
8. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax
9. MIB 3
10. Ice Age: Continental Drift

or, said another way, they’re all based on comic books, toys, dystopian futures, fairy tales, or are animated cartoons. Or some combination. And half of them are sequels or reboots. It’s not exactly 1939.